Uncle John was a large man in many ways, fat, generous, and well-heeled. He hadn’t any idea of what sort of a girl his niece was underneath her pleasant exterior. All her life she had been a bright little girl and pretty, so he simply ignored her spells of melancholy and her love of books. He gave her plenty of spending money, kept her in nice clothes and nice schools, and saw her at dinner and on weekends. He didn’t interfere with her private life and feelings; they simply didn’t matter to him that much. She was charmingly grateful for his care so he was fond of her and had arranged for her to have an independent income on her twenty-first birthday.
Laura cringed when he began to tease Beth. “We’re going to have to lock up her books until she gets herself a man,” he said, and roared amiably at his niece.
Beth grinned at him. “He’s scared to death I’ll wind up an old maid,” she told Laura, “and he’ll never get me off his hands.”
“Now, now, honey, you know that’s not true,” he chuckled.
Laura sat there almost hating Uncle John and his calm assumption that Beth wanted to get married. Couldn’t he see how fine and pure she was? Her face a blank and her thoughts miles away, Laura didn’t hear her buzz and it wasn’t until one of the girls nudged her and whispered something that she remembered she was supposed to meet Charlie that evening.
He looked even more attractive than she remembered and he said, “Well, Miss Landon, you look very pretty this evening.”
Laura tried to feel a spark of feminine interest in him, but she couldn’t. She liked him, that was all. He took her arm and led her out to the car. In it was a young man sitting alone. Charlie pointed to him and said, “This is my roommate, Mitch Grogan, Laura. We have an apartment—”
“So called—” said Mitch.
“—over on Daniel. Couple of blocks from campus.”
“Compensations of old age,” said Mitch. “You don’t have to live in university-approved housing. As a matter of fact, I don’t suppose we could get anybody to approve of our housing, Charlie.”
“What’s the matter with it?” said Laura.
The two boys laughed. “Everything,” said Charlie. “You name it, if it’s bad we got it—bad pipes, bad wiring, bad landlady, bad everything. But we can give a hell of a beer party in the front room.”
“And we keep our own hours,” Mitch added.
“How old do you have to be to get an apartment?” said Laura conversationally. They were driving toward the auditorium where the Varieties Show was scheduled to get underway.
“Real old,” said Charlie. “God, twenty-two, at least. Would you believe it, Laura, Mitch is damn near twenty-five.”
“Really?” said Laura, turning to look at Mitch in the front seat beside her.
Charlie laughed at her seriousness. “He’s going to die a bachelor,” he told her confidentially. “I just let him tag along with me for kicks. Otherwise he forgets what women look like.”
Laura looked at Mitch again and he didn’t seem in the least disturbed over Charlie’s prediction.
“See?” said Charlie with a grin. “God, they could put him right in the middle of a harem and he’d ignore every damn female until he got his homework done.”
Trouble finding a parking space stopped all conversation until they were inside the auditorium. From then on, Laura made no effort to try to listen to Charlie and Mitch over the wild shouts of laughter. She searched the huge audience for Beth and Uncle John, but couldn’t see them. When the Varieties were over Laura tried to scan every face she could see of the huge crowd streaming out of the auditorium, but Beth was nowhere in sight. Depressed and silent, Laura walked with Charlie and Mitch to Maxie’s.
Maxie’s was already jammed when they got there and the Dixie Six was in action, as usual.
“My God, when did Bud Nielsen start playing with them?” said Charlie.
“Where?” said Mitch. “Oh, yeah!”
Laura looked up, and there was Bud with his long gold horn glinting through the smoke, standing in the fore of the little bandstand that stood in the rear of the room.
“Do you know him?” she asked Charlie.
“Yeah, I know him. Fraternity brother. Good musician.”
“My roommate dates him,” said Laura.
“Beth dates this character?” Charlie looked at her in surprise.
“Oh, no! My other roommate—Emily.”
“Oh,” he chuckled. “I didn’t think Cullison would go for this guy,” and he nodded at Bud.
Cullison, Laura thought in irritation. Her name is Beth. Elizabeth.
“God, it’s crowded. Do you see a place?” Charlie said, squinting through the smoky pink gloom.
Laura became suddenly aware of someone saying her name and she turned around a couple of times, straining through the half-light at the myriad faces.
“Laura!” It was Beth. Laura saw her laughing and struggling through the crowd and her first wild impulse was to blindfold Charlie. But it was too late for that. She looked up at him and he was staring at Beth with a smile on his face. Laura was too upset to see that Mitch was smiling, too.
Beth was worth staring at. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were very bright, as if she had a romantic fever of some sort. Actually, she simply had too much beer in her, and it was making her laugh. The boys in the crowd were squeezing and pushing her and Laura was suddenly furious to see that she was enjoying it.
Beth reached a hand toward Laura and Charlie took it quickly and pulled her past the last few people that separated them. He pulled hard and she fell against him, laughing and off balance. He caught her around the waist to steady her and when she was quite steady he held
